Curing epoxy with Mg-Al LDH nanoplatelets intercalated with carbonate ion

Abstract Properties of epoxy/layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanocomposites depend on the extent to which epoxy has tendency towards metal cations as well as intercalating anionic minerals used in LDH synthesis. In this work, Mg-Al LDH was synthesized and intercalated with carbonate (CO3), then characterized with FTIR, X-ray diffractometry (XRD), and TGA/DTG analyses. The potential of the synthesized Mg-Al-CO3 LDHs for opening epoxy ring was examined by preparing epoxy nanocomposites containing 0.1 wt.% of LDHs. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) under nonisothermal scans at different heating rates of 2, 5, 7 and 10 °C/min was indicative of unconditional Poor cured epoxy nanocomposites, as recognized qualitatively by the use of Cure Index, which was attributed to hindered crosslinking caused by carbonate groups.